Spring!

Baby ducks being born. Flowering trees in Brooklyn Heights, tulips on Park Avenue, and spring's soft glow bringing the promise of new life to the world after winter's brittleness. The beauty of spring showing up in small patches everywhere.

Last week was a combo plate of Earth Day, Passover, Easter and my niece Katy's 11th birthday which I was happily able to celebrate in person last weekend in Florida. Katy's birth is always significant as she was born four months after my mother unexpectedly passed away, and was our first symbol of 'spring' after a long season of sadness.

Even if the weather in New York wasn't going to cooperate with the calendar, after a long weekend of play and being together, I felt it on the inside, and had faith that after a few false starts eventually it would be here.

And yesterday, it finally was.

Among some in my tribe I'm seeing spring arriving just on time as well. A new job and relocation East out of nowhere for a friend from San Clemente, news of a new baby on its way, a scary health situation turning around and for one close friend, saying bye bye to an unhappy work situation, and expecting better.

Here's to a new season of joy, passion, adventure, love...and having fun with french fries! Happy spring everyone.

A New Season

Every day for the past several weeks I've looked expectantly up at the trees on my block, looking for any signs of buds. Earlier in March there was the promise of spring, when warm temperatures perfumed the air, and doors and windows were wide open, down coats were off, everyone was outside, walking, running, biking, shaking off the winter blues and breathing a huge sigh of relief.

Then we've been in a very strange weather pattern of sameness. Very similar to the Bill Murray "Groundhogs Day" film where every day is the same, that's been the last few weeks of March...though every day felt like mid January!

Blue skies and the slant of spring sun on the earth, though lifeless trees, dried dead leaves and frigid air with rain, sleet, hail, and last week a forecast for snow. I'm ashamed to say I have not held up my end of my promise to myself to not complain about winter temperatures (yes, I know I don't live in California anymore but I am very much a warm weather person). In March, I was a bit grumbly....

Even the birds on my block who had returned from winter break and happily singing earlier in March were silent, or perhaps left for the south again. "Well, who can blame them?" I thought last week, in my gloves, scarf and puffy down coat.

Several people I know are going through a season of winter in their lives. Being out of work, family illness, financial stress, heartache, losing a best friend unexpectedly. And for some, nothing terribly tragic, but the dull flatness of a perpetual Groundhogs Day, and the not knowing when (or if) things will ever get better.

So this is the essence of faith. Somehow believing - without any empirical evidence whatsoever - that things can turn around. That spring will actually arrive.

This morning I went out quite early to buy coffee (I actually bought a bag of coffee last night but in my post yoga class bliss, accidentally left it on the counter). So woke up early and bundled up to go outside and suddenly felt and smelled warm, soft air. As I padded up the street I heard of joyful chorus of birds in full song, greeting the day. And then I looked up and saw the miracle of the season - first buds.

Spring!

Thank God.

Poetry in Motion

Over the weekend I saw Bill Cunningham New York , a documentary about the legendary New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham.

Later that evening, a passage I read several years ago in Joan Didion's The White Album about Georgia O'Keeffe came to mind:

"...I recall an August afternoon in Chicago in 1973 when I took my daughter, then seven, to see what Georgia O'Keeffe had done with where she had been. One of the vast O'Keeffe 'Sky Above Cloud' canvases floated over the back stairs of The Chicago Art Institute that day, dominating what seemed to be several stories of empty light, and my daughter looked at it at once, ran to the landing, and kept looking. 'Who drew it?' she whispered after a while. I told her. 'I need to talk to her,' she said finally. My daughter was making that day in Chicago, an entirely unconscious but quite basic assumption about people and the work they do. She was assuming that the glory in the work reflected a glory in its maker. That the painting was the painter as the poem is the poet, that every choice one made alone -- every word chosen or rejected, every brush stroke laid or not laid down--betrayed one's character. Style is character..."

Besides capturing the unique and overlapping worlds of New York City fashion and society and Bill Cunningham's very important role in it, it was the pure delight of watching an 82 year old man biking around New York City for the complete and utter joy of his work.

Though to him it's not work, it's for the fun of it.

The internet is full of amazed film and blog reviews of the film. I enjoyed reading Esquire's which linked to a classic Bill Cunningham "On the Street" column which now has a multi media video online to complement Sunday's paper. And NPR's notes:
"...Given the boundlessness of his enthusiasm and youthful energy, it's apparent that this is a man who found exactly what he was supposed to be doing, in exactly the city that needed him to do it."

"He who seeks beauty will find it," he says in a scene in the film.

Thank you Bill Cunningham for the reminder that It's a Wonderful Life...

Talk of the Town

So the big news this week (other than all the depressing stuff) was a venomous Egyptian cobra that escaped from the Bronx Zoo, forcing the shutdown of the reptile house. Soon afterwards, @BronxZoosCobra launched a twitter account, reporting comic adventures all over the city with the hashtag #snakeonthetown.

While the cobra didn't get as many followers as @CharlieSheen and his #winning, #tigerblood ways, she soon became a twitter and media star. Visiting the original Ray's pizza and H&H bagels. Going to Ellis island. Visiting Whole Foods for organic mice. Being included in the Ellen Show and Michael Bloomberg tweets. Reports of hosting Saturday Night Live. Associated Press wire stories. International news.

Merchandise...

I even learned yesterday that she even applied for a summer internship with us. (Uma the office pug not terribly excited about that thought)

Well, the snake was caught yesterday, much to everyone's disappointment. While its probably a good thing a 20 foot poisonous snake wasn't roaming around the city, everyone is missing the Twitter reports (with The New York Times guessing the real identity of the account).

Hmmm, do you think we all need to have a little more fun and play in our day??

Happy Friday everyone, and here's to an April with much more laughter.